WARSAW, Poland -- Solidarity leader Lech Walesa urged Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki yesterday to withdraw his resignation and help calm the country's economic and political crises.Mr. Walesa, winner of a plurality but not an outright majority in the first round of presidential elections Sunday, confirmed that he would contest the runoff Dec. 9.He said he would ask Mr. Mazowiecki, who announced his resignation after finishing third in the voting, to stay in office until the next parliamentary elections, expected in a few months.

THE POLES' anger at the disregard of civil society may be forgotten in the rush of Lech Walesa's presidential victory, but it would be dangerous to do so.The public's discontent with the non-democracy practiced by the intellectuals in Tadeusz Mazowiecki's government started as early as September, 1989. There were protesters outside of Parliament. Among them was Zuzanna Dubrowska, a Solidarity activist who had been part of the round-table discussions with the communists. She was furious with her friends in the Senate who had told her not to demonstrate.

Poles may not have much practice in democracy but they know about negative campaigning. It was a dismal campaign on all sides that saw the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and charismatic Solidarity union founder, Lech Walesa, win a commanding lead going into the Dec. 9 run-off.The principal loser, Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki, deserved better from Poles. He has thoughtfully tried to translate slogans into reforms. He is paying the price of resentments by people who lost their guaranteed place, however inadequate, in the Communist state.

Washington. A YEAR AGO I was gazing half-awake out the window of a minivan, speeding through morning darkness and thick fog somewhere between Berlin and Dresden. In a pulloff beside the autobahn, a sleepy driver was trying to get his truck started by running a torch of oil-soaked rags up and down under its diesel tank and frozen fuel lines.To me, that scene was a cartoon of Eastern Europe in the revolutionary fall of 1989. From Berlin to Moscow, dawn was breaking. The question was whether the new governments and economies just stirring would explode before they could be coaxed up to cruising speed, or would sit there and refuse to move at all.This week, answers are popping all over that part of the world.

WARSAW, Poland -- Polish Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki resigned last night after his stunning defeat in Sunday's presidential elections not only by Solidarity leader Lech Walesa but also by an unknown Polish-Canadian emigre, Stan Tyminski.Mr. Mazowiecki said that his Solidarity government had relied on the support and understanding of the population during a period of necessary but "extremely painful" reforms."For several months I believed that that understanding existed," he said. "Yesterday's election results show that the situation has changed."

Poland was first of the Eastern European countries to go somewhat democratic. That leaves it less democratic than others. Its government was created by a deal, not an election. It is time for Poland to catch up and pull ahead. The period of heroism is over. Post-transition Polish politics will begin with the next election.Lech Walesa, the charismatic founder of Solidarity trade union, has thrown his hat in the presidential ring. Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the intellectual Solidarity prime minister, is expected to oppose him, and should.

WARSAW, Poland -- The Polish media reported at length yesterday, though two weeks after the event, anti-Semitic exchanges that marred a rally in the presidential election campaign.The Warsaw daily Gazeta Wyborcza, which supports Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki's candidacy in the election Nov. 25, printed a detailed account of a campaign meeting he held last month in Plock, his birthplace, at which voters argued over his ethnic origin.The state-run television network followed up by broadcasting substantial excerpts from the meeting.

WARSAW, Poland -- A public opinion survey showing that a mysterious Canadian of Polish origin has outstripped Poland's prime minister in the race for the Polish presidency sent waves of panic through political circles here yesterday.The poll, taken last weekend by the government organization CBOS, showed that Solidarity leader Lech Walesa still led the field of six candidates. But his lead, once commanding, had been whittled down to a rating of only 27 percent, far short of the 50 percent needed to win outright Sunday and avoid a second round of voting Dec. 9.The revelation, however, concerned second place, previously occupied by Solidarity Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki.

WARSAW, Poland -- The race for the Polish presidency began in earnest last week with neither commanding contenders nor coherent programs, neither political know-how nor splashy spending.But the campaign already is a contest of flamboyance and pragmatism, charisma and competence, suspected authoritarianism and avowed democracy.The two sides of Poland's new political coin are both represented in this first free postwar presidential election by luminaries of the Solidarity labor union, vanguard of the popular uprisings that finally swept Communists from power throughout the Soviet bloc last year.

THE POLES' anger at the disregard of civil society may be forgotten in the rush of Lech Walesa's presidential victory, but it would be dangerous to do so.The public's discontent with the non-democracy practiced by the intellectuals in Tadeusz Mazowiecki's government started as early as September, 1989. There were protesters outside of Parliament. Among them was Zuzanna Dubrowska, a Solidarity activist who had been part of the round-table discussions with the communists. She was furious with her friends in the Senate who had told her not to demonstrate.

WARSAW, Poland -- Solidarity leader Lech Walesa urged Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki yesterday to withdraw his resignation and help calm the country's economic and political crises.Mr. Walesa, winner of a plurality but not an outright majority in the first round of presidential elections Sunday, confirmed that he would contest the runoff Dec. 9.He said he would ask Mr. Mazowiecki, who announced his resignation after finishing third in the voting, to stay in office until the next parliamentary elections, expected in a few months.

Poles may not have much practice in democracy but they know about negative campaigning. It was a dismal campaign on all sides that saw the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and charismatic Solidarity union founder, Lech Walesa, win a commanding lead going into the Dec. 9 run-off.The principal loser, Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki, deserved better from Poles. He has thoughtfully tried to translate slogans into reforms. He is paying the price of resentments by people who lost their guaranteed place, however inadequate, in the Communist state.

WARSAW, Poland -- Polish Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki resigned last night after his stunning defeat in Sunday's presidential elections not only by Solidarity leader Lech Walesa but also by an unknown Polish-Canadian emigre, Stan Tyminski.Mr. Mazowiecki said that his Solidarity government had relied on the support and understanding of the population during a period of necessary but "extremely painful" reforms."For several months I believed that that understanding existed," he said. "Yesterday's election results show that the situation has changed."

WARSAW, Poland -- A public opinion survey showing that a mysterious Canadian of Polish origin has outstripped Poland's prime minister in the race for the Polish presidency sent waves of panic through political circles here yesterday.The poll, taken last weekend by the government organization CBOS, showed that Solidarity leader Lech Walesa still led the field of six candidates. But his lead, once commanding, had been whittled down to a rating of only 27 percent, far short of the 50 percent needed to win outright Sunday and avoid a second round of voting Dec. 9.The revelation, however, concerned second place, previously occupied by Solidarity Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki.

WARSAW, Poland -- The Polish media reported at length yesterday, though two weeks after the event, anti-Semitic exchanges that marred a rally in the presidential election campaign.The Warsaw daily Gazeta Wyborcza, which supports Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki's candidacy in the election Nov. 25, printed a detailed account of a campaign meeting he held last month in Plock, his birthplace, at which voters argued over his ethnic origin.The state-run television network followed up by broadcasting substantial excerpts from the meeting.

WARSAW, Poland -- The race for the Polish presidency began in earnest last week with neither commanding contenders nor coherent programs, neither political know-how nor splashy spending.But the campaign already is a contest of flamboyance and pragmatism, charisma and competence, suspected authoritarianism and avowed democracy.The two sides of Poland's new political coin are both represented in this first free postwar presidential election by luminaries of the Solidarity labor union, vanguard of the popular uprisings that finally swept Communists from power throughout the Soviet bloc last year.

Washington. A YEAR AGO I was gazing half-awake out the window of a minivan, speeding through morning darkness and thick fog somewhere between Berlin and Dresden. In a pulloff beside the autobahn, a sleepy driver was trying to get his truck started by running a torch of oil-soaked rags up and down under its diesel tank and frozen fuel lines.To me, that scene was a cartoon of Eastern Europe in the revolutionary fall of 1989. From Berlin to Moscow, dawn was breaking. The question was whether the new governments and economies just stirring would explode before they could be coaxed up to cruising speed, or would sit there and refuse to move at all.This week, answers are popping all over that part of the world.